Pucker

by Melanie Gideon

  He shook his head at her angrily, then knelt in front of me. I buried my face in his chest. Slowly his hands crept around me and he kissed my forehead. This was another first. I had never in my memory been kissed by either of my parents.

  My mother turned her attention back to the woodcut of the slain Seers and her face darkened. “I should tear that page out.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s my book!” It was the only thing I owned.

  An hour later my mother and I set out for the Ministry. When we got there, I went into the Children’s Room and my mother continued down the corridor. Because my parents were Seers, they didn’t have to wait in line with the rest of the population to get their futures read. They were allowed to forecast for each other, and they did this each morning at the breakfast table. They couldn’t forecast for me, however, because Seers were unable to see the future of their blood kin.

  Morning was a busy time, and ten Seers were working the Children’s Room. Each of them had a queue that was a dozen children deep. I sighed and got in line. What I really wanted to do was roam the halls of the Ministry to try and catch a glimpse of the Maker.

  The Maker was a relatively new breed of Seer. The first one had come into existence just after the Great War, and there was never more than one at a time. The most astounding thing about the Maker was not that she saw into the past instead of the future, but that she could change a person’s past. It was because of the Maker that we eventually opened up the portals to Earth again.

  Everything had changed, though. No longer were we satisfied with information-gathering expeditions. Now we trolled the streets of America with just one intent: to enlist a workforce for Isaura. Maybe we reasoned that it was payback for the ills that had been inflicted on our society.

  It’s not as bad as it sounds. We did have codes of conduct. Enlistment was voluntary. We never forced anyone to come. We also only recruited those who were ill, whose bodies were disfigured in some way. In exchange for the Maker healing them, altering the event that had led to their deformity, the Changed (as we came to call them) washed our clothes, cleaned our outhouses, and swept our streets.

  I was desperate to see the Maker work her magic—all of us children were. Instead I was stuck listening to the Seers in the Children’s Room, who were doing the most mundane of jobs.

  “There’s a pothole on Cherry Lane; make sure you avoid it. If you don’t, you’ll sprain your ankle.”

  “Don’t eat the stewed pears; they’ll give you a stomachache.”

  “You’re going to fail your history test. I suggest you study a little harder.”

  These Seers were the workhorses of the Ministry, many of them very young and still apprenticing. When it came to forecasting the daily events that would befall the citizens of Isaura, Seers were limited in their powers. First of all, they couldn’t just see somebody’s future at whim. They had to be actually touching that person. Also, they could only see out about twenty-four hours at a time. That was why everybody had to come each morning to the Ministry to be read.

  With bigger life issues, like vocations, marriage, and births, Seers could see far out into the future, but not with the same level of detail with which they forecast the day’s events. Seers could also see years ahead with storms, natural catastrophes, and diseases.

  My parents both worked in Weather. They knew that 324 days from now there would be a blizzard that would blanket the countryside with ten feet of snow. Because of their predictions preparations were already under way: food was being stockpiled, and wood had been chopped and stacked in barns.

  Finally I got to the front of the line and stuck my hand out eagerly. Given my parents’ odd behavior this morning, I was anxious to hear what the rest of the day would hold. The Seer placed his palm on mine and I readied myself for the odd sensation of being read. It felt like hands creeping around inside you, as if your chest were a bureau and the Seer were pushing aside your liver and your spleen, looking for a lost pair of socks. I had been taught that at the exact moment when my breath caught in my throat, I must surrender myself to the Seer’s probe. The sensation was like falling.

  Only this time I didn’t fall. I heard my mother’s voice in my head. She yelled my name—“Thomas!”—and I felt the Seer’s energy dissipate inside me and scurry away.

  The Seer dropped my hand. “Strange,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He picked up his notebook and scribbled something next to my name.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, worried that he somehow knew what had happened that morning. That I had cried. That my mother had cried. That my father had kissed me.

  “Nobody said you did,” he said, flicking his hand impatiently at me. “It’s my job to report when I can’t read somebody. Now move aside, please.”

  My mother was waiting for me in the hallway. “I want to show you something,” she said.

  She grabbed my hand, then let it go. She had forgotten herself. Parents did not hold children’s hands in Isaura. We wound our way up two staircases and down a hall. Finally we stood in front of an unmarked door. From her pocket she produced a key, and quickly we let ourselves in. We were in a tiny library. My mother breathed deeply. The room smelled of leather.

  “Do you know where these books are from, Thomas?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Can you take a guess?”

  I pulled a book from the shelf and read the title—Anna Karenina.

  “They’re from Earth,” she told me.

  Quickly I slid the book back onto the shelf as if it were diseased. I had been taught that anything from Earth was contaminated, poison. Isaurian children were not even allowed to speak to the Changed.

  “Do you want to know how many of these books I’ve read?” my mother asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said. This day was getting stranger and stranger. I just wanted to go home.

  She stuck her face in mine. “Don’t believe what they tell you about Earth, Thomas. It’s not a horrible place. It’s not filled with savages. Literature like this could only come from a world where there’s love.”

  “What’s happened to you?” I asked.

  She smoothed the hair back from my forehead. “I don’t want to frighten you, baby.”

  “Then don’t call me baby,” I said.

  My mother took me home. A few hours later there was a knock on our door. Two of the Changed stood on our doorstep, a young girl and a man. They looked similar, with the same silvery blond hair. They wore baskets strapped around their necks; their wares were displayed to their best advantage. We already knew that they were bringing ripe tomatoes, garlic, and a leg of lamb: the Meals Department had determined that more than a week ago.

  “The strawberries are ripe today. I’ve got a fine leg of lamb,” said the girl. “Butterflied, just as you wanted it.”

  She curtsied, but there was no eye contact. She knew the rules. She was not to address me. Isaurian children were considered impressionable and vulnerable. They should have as few dealings with the Changed as possible.

  The Changed were good at following the rules, for they lived under threat of being changed back to their disfigured forms and sent back to Earth.

  “My son wants chicken,” my mother said. “It’s his birthday.”

  That was a lie.

  The man looked at us blankly. “But we were told you wanted lamb.”

  He wasn’t trying to be insolent. He was following orders. According to his delivery list, which had been compiled by the Ministry seven days ago, the Gale family would be having a lamb dinner tonight.

  “Chicken,” my mother challenged him.

  “This has never happened before,” he said, addressing me.

  “Mom,” I said, but she stared at me emptily.

  The man turned to the girl. “Do we have chickens back in the Compound?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t want chicken. Lamb is fine,” I said.

&n
bsp; The girl was pretty, just a few years older than me. Her skin was the color of toffee. What had she looked like before? Were her hands flippers? Was her body curled up into the shape of a comma?

  “Lamb is not fine,” said my mother, gathering up her sweater.

  Twenty minutes later we stood on a hill looking down at the bustling Compound.

  “What’s your name?” my mother asked the man.

  “Ethan 434,” he said. 434—his last name: the number of days he’d been in Isaura. Tomorrow his name would change and he’d be Ethan 435.

  “Thank you, Ethan 434,” she said.

  Ethan led us down the hill and we trailed after him like sheep. We went past the bakery and the laundry. I smelled seared cotton and bleach, tallow, fried onions, and yeast.

  Our presence in the Compound was unnerving, and the Changed hurried to fulfill my mother’s request. They did a sloppy job. The heads of two chickens were lopped off; they were wrapped in a rag and tied with twine. Within minutes the rag and my mother’s shirt were maroon with blood. Ethan 434 made no offer to help. I untied the package and ripped off the rag. We used the twine to harness the chickens’ feet together and my mother carried them upside down. By the time we got home, they would be drained of their blood.

  “Lead me out, quickly now,” my mother said.

  Ethan 434 led us into the central courtyard, where we stumbled on a cartload of immigrants who had just arrived from America. Some were propped up on pillows, their arms and legs twisted in unthinkable ways. There was a small bald girl who was so emaciated you could see every bone, and a young woman with no legs. But this wasn’t why I stared, why I couldn’t turn away. It was their gaze. It beat out of them like wings. Was this what my mother had been talking about? Was this what living in a world with love did to you? They looked so alive. My mother and I walked closer to the cart.

  One of the immigrants stuck her fingers out of the cart and wiggled them. “Is somebody there?” she called out.

  “I’m here,” my mother said. Their fingers touched.

  “I’m scared,” the girl whispered.

  I could tell from her voice that she couldn’t be more than a teenager.

  My mother read her future quickly. “Don’t be.”

  Forecasting her future was something my mother wouldn’t be able to do after the girl was Changed. For some reason, once the Maker had molecularly changed an immigrant’s past, his or her future became unreadable.

  “Will I see you again?” the girl asked.

  “I don’t think so,” my mother told her.

  Then my mother brought the girl’s fingers to her lips and kissed them. A gasp rippled through the crowd. The Changed had never seen an Isaurian show affection.

  I looked across the clearing and saw a man leaning against a pillar, smoking a cigar. He nodded at me. I pointed him out to my mother.

  “He’s what they call a Host,” she explained. “His job is to guide the new recruits through orientation.”

  “But he doesn’t look Changed,” I said. I was used to the expressionless, subservient Changed who delivered our food and raised our cattle.

  “He’s Changed. But there’s something different about Hosts. Something the Maker does to them, I think,” my mother said. “They’re the Ministry’s watchdogs,” she added with a frown.

  “Can I help you?” the Host called out, exhaling a plume of smoke. My heart began to pound its distress. Even though it would draw even more attention to us, I took my mother’s hand and squeezed it.

  “No, thank you,” said my mother calmly. “We got the wrong order. We thought it’d be faster to come and exchange it ourselves.”

  The Host raised his eyebrows and took a step toward us. “There is no such thing as a wrong order,” he said. The crowd dispersed. He squinted, as if he were trying to memorize our faces.

  When we got back home, it was late afternoon and Cook was sitting at the kitchen table chopping up the plums into tiny pieces. I could tell by the way she slammed the knife down into the cutting board that something was wrong. My mother handed her the chickens silently and disappeared into her bedroom to change her stained shirt.

  “Where have you been?” Cook asked.

  “We went to the Compound. She said she wanted chicken for dinner, not lamb.”

  Cook peeled the plum and handed me the skin. I loved the tart, almost bitter taste. “Who saw you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to tell her about the Host.

  “Anyone from the Ministry?”

  I shook my head.

  Cook put down her knife. “Thomas, you must be very careful.”

  “I’m always careful.” I was a cautious boy. I didn’t take unnecessary risks.

  “That’s not what I mean. I know you’re careful. But sometimes things can happen that are out of your control. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Cook had a real name, Adalia, but in our household she had always been called Cook. She was much more than a cook. She was a nursemaid, a teacher, a skilled herbalist, and a surrogate grandmother. We knew each other so well that often we didn’t even have to speak.

  “Tonight, when the Seers come, don’t try and eavesdrop.”

  “I don’t. I never do,” I said.

  “I’ve got no time for lies, Thomas. Just do as I ask. Go to sleep tonight. Leave your parents to their business.”

  I gulped. I felt the tears coming again.

  “Stop worrying,” she said gruffly, picking up her knife. She turned away from me. She had no desire to see me cry.

  So I didn’t worry. Not that night, when the house was filled with the booming voices of the Seers. Not the next morning, when my parents did not forecast each other’s days at the breakfast table. Not even when they told me they would not be bringing me to the Ministry for my morning read.

  “It’s such a beautiful day, T,” my father said. “Why don’t you go pick us some blackberries?”

  My mother rummaged around in the cabinet under the sink. “Here,” she said, handing me a wooden pail. “I want to see that halfway filled.” She thought about it a moment and added, “All the way filled would be even better.”

  “Can I go to our secret patch?” I asked. It was quite a distance, on the other side of the lake. “Please,” I begged.

  My father studied me, his head cocked. I had never seen tenderness on his face before and had no idea what to make of it. To me it looked like he was about to be sick.

  “I think that’s a fine idea,” he said, ruffling my hair.

  Thrilled, I ran out of the house. I had never been allowed to go that far alone.

  “I’ll be here when you get back,” my father yelled after me. There was a note of desperation in his voice that made me want to get away from him as fast as I could.

  It was noon when I returned. I was so excited to show my parents my overflowing pail that I nearly tripped over my father, who was sprawled out on the kitchen floor, his limbs rigid, his lips the oddest shade of lavender.

  Dead.

  My mother lay near the sink, conscious but barely so. She couldn’t speak. She could only watch me from beneath her swollen eyelids.

  A butcher knife lay on the table, its blade gleaming with a gelatinous gold speckled substance. While I had been out picking berries, my parents had been flayed of their Seerskins. My father’s was balled up on the counter. My mother’s was curled up beside her, like a fetus.

  I was a small eight-year-old, compact enough to fit in the kitchen sink, and so I crawled into it. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth in that cold bowl. It never occurred to me to get help. I was simply . . . alone.

  Hours passed. The candles, strangely lit in the middle of the day, flickered wildly on the counter, their flames horizontal, bending as if under some great weight. Greedy fingers of fire danced across my father’s Seerskin. If I had just reached out with one hand I could have swept it to the floor, saved it from burning. But I was gripped with fear; I for
got I could move. There was a hideous musicality accompanying all this, a rattling percussive thrum that my father’s skin made just before it turned to ash.

  When the linen curtains above the sink caught fire, I understood I was next. At first it smelled good, familiar and safe, like buttery pecans or the promise of a barbecue. I looked up, mesmerized by the orange glow.

  Then I heard the sound of a buckboard. Cook: she had come back to rescue me. Like many of the ordinary people in Isaura, she had a bit of the gift in her. Enough to make her hunches reality more often than not. I felt her weathered and chapped hands plucking me out of the sink. I reached up, clasping her around the neck like a baby.

  It was ironic that my parents’ gift showed itself in me at this particular moment. Cook was coming, but she’d just started down the dirt road; she wasn’t in the kitchen, not yet. When I reached up, I tugged on the curtains and pulled the fire down atop myself.

  Cook burst through the door just as I was falling to the ground. The top layers of my skin hung from my face like a giant sheet of wax. Cook would tell me later that I had no idea my face was aflame. I was cupping my chin as if I had just vomited and was trying to get to the bathroom before it splattered all over the floor.

  Frenzied, she tried to take everything in at once: me on fire, my mother and father on the floor. My mother managed to croak one word, a command, “Thomas,” which set Cook in motion. She ran to my side and put the fire out with a dish towel before it could spread. She applied pressure to my arms, my legs, and my torso—the places where I hadn’t been burned.

  “Go to sleep; that’s a good boy. Sleep.”

  An accommodating child, cradled in the arms of Cook, I fell away.

  Days passed. I didn’t know how many. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Cook was always at my side, changing the poultices on my face, feeding me a watery broth through a straw. She talked in a comforting, steady stream. She told me now was the time to be brave.